**LENINIST COLLECTION**

Comparison of Plekhanov's and Staryover's resolutions: flexibility and completeness vs. mixing of two tasks and casuistry. You must not obscure the consciousness of the proletariat when agreement is possible—liberals and bourgeois democrats cannot help but obscure the proletariat's consciousness. Our agreement with them is determined by joint struggle and does not depend on "obscuration," since we, regardless of any agreement, will struggle against obscuration.

## b. WORKERS' DEMOCRACY AND BOURGEOIS DEMOCRACY

The question of the relationship between social democracy, or workers' democracy, to bourgeois democracy is an old question and at the same time an eternally new one. It is old because it was raised from the very moment when social democracy arose. Its theoretical foundations were clarified in the earliest works of Marxist literature, first and foremost in the Communist Manifesto and in Capital. It is eternally new because each step in the development of each capitalist country gives a particular, original combination of various shades of bourgeois democracy and various currents in the socialist movement. Old principles are clarified and developed as they are applied to ever-new political combinations. General theoretical questions are replaced by questions about the correct application of positions established by scientific socialism to reality.

In Russia, this old question has become particularly new at the present time. In order to clarify the present situation more distinctly for ourselves, we shall begin with a brief historical account. Old Russian revolutionary Populism stood on a utopian, semi-anarchist point of view. The peasant commoner was considered a ready-made socialist. Behind the liberalism of educated Russian society one clearly saw the desires of Russian bourgeoisie. The struggle for political freedom was therefore unconditionally rejected as a struggle for institutions advantageous to the bourgeoisie. The Narodovolcy took a step forward in practical terms by passing over to political struggle, but they did not succeed in linking it with socialism. The strikingly socialist formulation of the question was even obscured when the declining faith in the socialism of our commune began to be replaced by theories in the spirit of Mr. V. V. concerning the non-class, non-bourgeois character of Russian democratic intelligentsia. This laid the foundation for Populism, which had previously unconditionally rejected bourgeois liberalism, to gradually merge with the latter into one liberal-Populist direction. The bourgeois-democratic essence of Russian intelligentsia's movement, from the most moderate, culturist variety to the most extreme, revolutionary-terrorist kind, became increasingly apparent, simultaneously with the appearance and development of proletarian ideology (social democracy) and mass workers' movement. But the growth of the latter was accompanied, as is known, by a split among Marxist writers and among practical social democrats. The revolutionary and opportunist wings of social democracy became clearly evident, the former expressing proletarian, the latter—intelligentsia tendencies of our movement. Legal Marxism soon proved in practice to be both a reflection of Marxism in bourgeois literature (as Lenin called Struve's Critical Notes as far back as 1894) and proceeded directly through Bernsteinian opportunism to liberalism. Economists in social democracy, on one hand, were carried away by the semi-anarchist conception of purely workers' movement, considered the support of bourgeois opposition by socialists as betrayal of the class point of view, declared that bourgeois democracy in Russia is a phantom. On the other hand, economists of another shade, carried away by the same purely workers' movement, reproached revolutionary social democrats with ignoring the general social struggle against autocracy being waged by our liberals, zemstvo men, and culturists.

The Old Iskra, which first had to apply the principles of revolutionary social democracy to the constant evaluation of current political tasks in the epoch of mass workers' movement, took up arms against all shades and directions of opportunism. It showed the elements of bourgeois democracy in Russia at a time when many did not see them due to the absence of Liberation and the unclarified position of the socialist revolutionaries. It demanded the proletariat's support of this democracy (see Iskra No. 2 on support for the student movement, No. 8 on the illegal zemstvo congress, on liberal nobles, and No. 18 on ferment in the zemstvos, etc.). It marked at the same time, with steadfastness, the constantly class, bourgeois character of the liberal and radical movement—its half-heartedness, irresolution, narrowness—clarifying that only the proletariat can be a consistent and decisive fighter for democracy to the end. The Old Iskra always opposed the more consistent democrat to the less consistent one and, recognizing the necessity of the proletariat's support for them, said to the wavering Liberation supporters: "It is time to understand the simple truth that true (not verbal) joint struggle against the common enemy is ensured not by political maneuvering, not by what the late Stepnyak once called self-castration and self-concealment, not by the conditional falsehood of diplomatic mutual recognition, but by actual participation in struggle—by the actual unity of struggle. When German social democrats' struggle against military-police and feudal-clerical reaction truly became common with the struggle of some real party relying on a known class of the people (for instance, the liberal bourgeoisie), then joint action was established without phrases about mutual recognition" (No. 26).

This formulation of the question by the Old Iskra brings us directly to the present disputes about the relationship of social democrats to liberals. As is known, these disputes began with the Second Congress, which adopted two resolutions corresponding to the point of view of the majority (Plekhanov's resolution) and minority (Staryover's resolution). The first resolution accurately points out the class character of liberalism as a movement of the bourgeoisie, and puts to the fore the task of clarifying to the proletariat the counter-revolutionary and anti-proletarian character of the main liberal direction (Liberation). Recognizing the necessity of the proletariat's support for bourgeois democracy, this resolution does not pursue "agreement" and does not invent "conditions" for agreement, does not fall into political maneuvering of mutual recognition, but in the spirit of the Old Iskra reduces the matter to joint struggle: "insofar as the bourgeoisie acts as revolutionary or merely oppositional in its struggle against tsarism," to that extent social democrats "must support" it—independently of invented conditions (for we need support to strike a blow against our enemy), independently of the measure of bourgeois democracy's inconsistency and insufficiency (for it is always inconsistent, but we support it only insofar as it struggles against our enemy).

Staryover's resolution, on the contrary, does not give a class analysis of liberalism and democratism. It is full of good intentions—it invents conditions for agreement as high and good as possible, but, unfortunately, fictitious and verbal. The proletarian point of view puts actual joint struggle to the fore. The point of view of an intelligentsia person (even one adhering to social democracy) puts verbal conditions for agreements to the fore: liberals or democrats must declare this or that, must not put forward such-and-such demands, must make such-and-such a slogan their own. As if the history of bourgeois democracy everywhere and always had not warned workers against faith in declarations, demands, and slogans! As if history had not shown us hundreds of examples when bourgeois democrats came forward with slogans not only of complete freedom but of equality, with slogans of socialism, while not ceasing to be bourgeois democrats on account of this, and indeed introducing even more "obscuration" of the proletariat's consciousness! The intelligentsia wing of social democracy wants to fight against this obscuration by presenting conditions to bourgeois democrats about non-obscuration. The proletarian wing fights through analysis of the class content of democratism. The intelligentsia wing pursues verbal conditions for agreements. The proletarian wing demands actual joint struggle. The intelligentsia wing invents a measure of good, kind, and deserving agreement with it bourgeoisie. The proletarian wing expects no goodness from the bourgeoisie, but supports any—even the worst—bourgeoisie, insofar as it actually struggles against tsarism. The intelligentsia wing falls into the point of view of mercantilism: if you stand on the side of social democrats and not socialist revolutionaries, then we agree to enter into agreement against the common enemy, otherwise no. The proletarian wing stands on the point of view of expediency—of the proletariat's military campaign against tsarism: we support you exclusively on the basis of whether we can strike even the slightest blow against our enemy.

All the deficiencies of Staryover's intelligentsia-well-intentioned and intelligentsia-insubstantial resolution appeared clearly in the first attempt at contact with reality. Such contact occurred through the famous plan of the New Iskra's editorial board, the plan of "the highest type of mobilization," in connection with the principal reasonings of No. 77 (editorial: "Democracy at the Crossroads") and No. 78 (feuilleton of Staryover). The plan was already discussed in Lenin's pamphlet, and we shall have to dwell on the reasonings here.

The fundamental idea (or rather, fundamental lack of thought) of the New Iskra's reasonings is the distinction between zemstvo men and bourgeois democracy. This distinction runs like a red thread through both articles, and an attentive reader will see that instead of the term bourgeois democracy, and alongside it, are used as equivalent terms: democracy, radical intelligentsia (sic!), emerging democracy, intelligentsia democracy. The New Iskra, with its characteristic modesty, elevates this distinction to the level of a great discovery, an original conception "which it was not given to the poor Lenin to understand." This distinction is directly linked with that new method of struggle about which we have heard so much both from Trotsky and directly from the Iskra editorial board (see its letter with the plan and No. 79 on proletarian demonstrations)—namely: zemstvo liberalism, they say, is "good only for being scourged with scorpions," while intelligentsia democracy is good for agreements with us. Democracy must act independently as an independent force. "Russian liberalism, stripped of its historically-necessary part, its moving nerve (listen!), its bourgeois-democratic half, is good only for being scourged with scorpions." In Lenin's conception "of Russian liberalism there was no place for such social elements upon which social democracy could at some point exert its influence as the vanguard of democracy."

Such is the new theory. Like all the New Iskra's new theories, it represents sheer confusion. In the first place, the pretension to priority in the discovery of intelligentsia democracy is groundless and ridiculous. In the second place, the distinction between zemstvo liberalism and bourgeois democracy is incorrect. In the third place, the opinion that the intelligentsia can become an independent force is untenable. In the fourth place, the assertion that zemstvo liberalism (without its "bourgeois-democratic" half) is good only for scourging is unjust. Let us examine all these points.

Lenin allegedly ignored "the consolidation of zemstvo-liberal circles and bourgeois democracy," the emergence of intelligentsia democracy and "the third element."

Let us open Zarya No. 2-3. Let us take that very internal survey which is cited in the same feuilleton of Staryover (and which he correctly remarks was written by Lenin. On p. 384). We read the heading of the third section: "The Third Element." We leaf through this section and read about "the growth in number and influence of those employed in zemstvos—doctors, technicians, etc.," we read about "the irrepressible economic development, giving rise to the need for intelligentsia, whose numbers constantly grow," we read about the inevitability of conflicts between these intelligentsia and the bureaucracy and administrative officials, about the "directly epidemic character of these conflicts in recent times," about "the incompatibility of autocracy with the interests of intelligentsia in general," we read a direct appeal to these elements "under the banner" of social democracy.

Is it not funny? The newly-discovered intelligentsia democracy and the necessity of calling it under the banner of social democracy were "discovered" by that very same harmful Lenin three years ago!

It is true! Of course, at that time there had not yet been discovered that distinction—the opposition of zemstvo men and bourgeois democracy. And it is good that it was not discovered, for it is nonsense. Whether you take the class bases of Russian bourgeois democracy or the ideological currents of Russian democratic thought, you will see with equal clarity the absurdity of this distinction. Zemstvo men and noble leaders are one of the parts of our bourgeois democracy. But this opposition of the New Iskra is as intelligent as if we were to say: the island of Kyushu, Moscow Province, and the territory of the Japanese and Russian empires. Zemstvo men—censitary representatives and noble leaders—are democrats insofar as they stand (and they undoubtedly do stand) against autocracy and serfdom. Their democratism is limited, narrow, and inconsistent, just as limited, narrow, and inconsistent in various degrees is all and every bourgeois democratism.

The editorial of No. 77 of Iskra analyzes our liberalism by dividing it into groups: 1) serf-holding nobles, 2) liberal nobles, 3) intelligentsia liberalism, standing for a censitary constitution, and 4) the extreme left—democratic intelligentsia. This analysis is incomplete and confused, for intelligentsia divisions are mixed with divisions of the various classes and groups whose interests the intelligentsia expresses. Apart from the interests of a wide layer of nobles, Russian bourgeois democratism now reflects the interests of a mass of merchants and industrialists, especially medium and small ones, as well as (which is especially important) a mass of proprietors and small proprietors among the peasantry. The ignoring of this especially wide layer of Russian bourgeois democracy is a first gap in Iskra's analysis. This layer most often expresses its wishes not directly but through democratic intelligentsia (and this happens for perfectly understandable reasons), but the sharper the Russian political crisis becomes, the nearer the time when this layer will speak directly for itself. Then we shall see in practice its splitting into revolutionary democracy and reactionary democracy—a split which we can predict without error now on the basis of scientific analysis of its interests and its Populist ideology. In any case, even to this extreme left of our bourgeois democracy, social democracy can only promise conditional support—only insofar as this democracy actually struggles against autocracy. Bourgeois democracy in Russia, like everywhere, splits into a multitude of layers, groups, and classes. All these groups are united by standing on the basis of bourgeois society, being primarily proprietors and small proprietors. All of them in their broad mass, with individual exceptions, are hostile to autocracy and the remnants of serfdom, though the degree of this hostility is far from equal depending on the differences in their permanent class position and temporary political situation. All these layers of bourgeois democracy, from the most moderate zemstvo liberals to the sharply-revolutionary petty-bourgeois democracy, must be supported by the proletariat, but not unconditionally, only in the measure of their opposition and revolutionary character—not in words, but in deeds.

Now take Russian democratic intelligentsia. This is a layer especially mobile and especially suited to generalized and idealized expression of the interests of bourgeois democracy. The second gap of Iskra's analysis is the forgetting that Russian democratic intelligentsia does not accidentally, but necessarily, splits, according to its political position, into three channels: the Liberation channel, the socialist-revolutionary, and the social democratic. All these directions have behind them a long history and each expresses (with the definiteness possible in an autocratic state) the point of view of the moderate and revolutionary ideologists of bourgeois democracy and the point of view of the proletariat. There is nothing more curious than the New Iskra's persistent wish: "democracy must act as an independent force," when at the same time democracy is identified with radical intelligentsia! The New Iskra forgot that radical intelligentsia or intelligentsia democracy, having become an "independent force," is precisely our Party of Socialist Revolutionaries! Our democratic intelligentsia could not have had any other "extreme left." The predominantly intelligentsia composition of the "Party"; the absence of links with a definite class; hostility to a consistent and consecutive theory of class struggle; preference for intelligentsia means of revolutionary struggle such as terror; vague revolutionary-democratic and revolutionary-socialist theories; the durability of old ideological traditions of Russian intelligentsia, that is, Populism; susceptibility to every fashionable word from European radical intelligentsia such as revisionism—all these characteristic traits of our Socialist Revolutionaries make their party (the most perfect, the most "pure" expression of the "independent force" of our radical and revolutionary intelligentsia. But it goes without saying that one can speak of the independence of such intelligentsia only in an ironic or only a bombistic sense of the word. To stand on the basis of bourgeois democracy and move to the left of Liberation means to move toward the Socialist Revolutionaries and nowhere else.

Finally, the last new discovery of the New Iskra stands up even less to criticism—namely, that liberalism without its bourgeois-democratic half is good only for being scourged with scorpions, that "the idea of hegemony would be more wisely thrown overboard" if there is no one to turn to but zemstvo men. Every liberalism (always being a part of bourgeois democracy) is good for social democracy to support it insofar as it actually comes forward as a fighter against autocracy. This support, by the only consistently democratic fighter to the end—the proletariat—of all inconsistent (that is, bourgeois) democrats, and this constitutes the idea of hegemony. Only a petty-bourgeois, mercantile understanding of hegemony sees its essence in agreement, in mutual recognition, in verbal conditions. From the proletarian point of view, hegemony belongs in fact to the one who fights most energetically, who uses every occasion (though it be even a bourgeois-democratic, even a liberal occasion) to strike the enemy, whose word does not diverge from deed, who is therefore the ideological leader of democracy, criticizing every half-heartedness. The New Iskra deeply errs in thinking that half-heartedness is a moral rather than a politico-economic property of bourgeois democracy, in thinking that one can and must find such a measure of half-heartedness up to which liberalism deserves only scorpions, beyond which it deserves agreement. This precisely means deciding in advance the measure of permissible baseness. In reality, think hard about the following words: "To make agreement with oppositional groups conditional on their recognition of universal, equal, direct, and secret suffrage means 'to present them with the irresistible reagent of one's demand, the litmus paper of democratism, and to place on the scales of their political calculation all the value of proletarian assistance'" (No. 78). How beautifully this is written! and how one wants to say to the author of these beautiful words, Staryover: my friend, Arkady Nikolayevich, do not speak beautifully! One must think a little to see the falsity of these beautiful words. The very same G. Struve with one stroke of his pen refuted the irresistible reagent of Staryover when he wrote universal suffrage in the program of the Union of Liberation. And the very same Struve has already more than once proved to us in fact that all these programs for liberals are simply paper—not litmus, but ordinary paper, whose value is equal to the value of waste paper, because for the bourgeois democrat nothing costs him to write one thing today and another tomorrow. This property distinguishes even many intelligentsia passing over to social democracy. The entire history of European and Russian liberalism shows hundreds of examples of divergence between words and deeds, and it is precisely for this reason that Staryover's naive striving to invent irresistible paper reagents is naive and his attempt to influence the political calculation of the bourgeoisie through the promise of proletarian assistance, when in fact this assistance depends not on the program, slogans, and demands of the bourgeoisie, but on the degree of its actual coming forward for struggle.

The point of view of a commercial transaction, of agreement, necessarily and inevitably leads Staryover to the great idea that to support bourgeoisie in their struggle with tsarism who do not agree to universal suffrage means to "negate the idea of universal suffrage" (No. 78)!

Perhaps Staryover will write us another beautiful feuilleton proving that, by supporting monarchists in their struggle with autocracy, we negate the "idea" of a republic? The trouble is that Staryover's thought helplessly revolves within the framework of conditions, slogans, demands, declarations, and loses sight of the sole real criterion: the degree of actual participation in struggle. From this in practice there inevitably results a romanticizing of radical intelligentsia, with which it is declared possible to "agree." The intelligentsia is, in mockery of Marxism, declared the "moving nerve" (and not the cowardly servant?) of liberalism. French and Italian radicals are rewarded with the title of people to whom anti-democratic or anti-proletarian demands are alien, though everyone knows that these radicals countless times have betrayed their programs and obscured the consciousness of the proletariat, though in that very issue of No. 78 of Iskra on the following (seventh) page you can read how monarchists and republicans in Italy turned out to be "at one in the struggle against socialism." The resolution of Saratov intelligentsia from the sanitary society about the necessity of the participation of representatives of all the people in legislation is declared "the true voice (!!)" of democracy (No. 77).

The practical plan for the proletariat's participation in zemstvo campaign is accompanied by the advice "to enter into some agreement with representatives of the left wing of the oppositional bourgeoisie" (the famous agreement about not producing panic fear). To Lenin's question, where did the notorious Staryover's conditions for agreements go, the New Iskra's editorial board answered:

"These conditions must always be in the memory of Party members, and the latter, knowing on what conditions the Party is only willing to formally enter into political agreements with a democratic party, are morally obligated in private agreements, which are discussed in the letter, to strictly distinguish between reliable representatives of bourgeois opposition—true democrats, and liberal petty-minded persons."

Step by step. Along with a party agreement (the only permissible one according to Staryover's resolution) there appeared, when needed, private agreements in individual cities. Along with formal agreements there appeared moral ones. Verbal recognition of "conditions" and their "moral" obligatoriness turned out to give the title of a "reliable" and "true democrat," though every child understands that dozens and hundreds of zemstvo talkers will make any verbal declarations, will assure, on their word as radicals, that they are socialists, if only to reassure social democrats about their reliability.

No, the proletariat will not engage in this game with slogans, declarations, and agreements. The proletariat will never forget that reliable democrats cannot be bourgeois democrats. The proletariat will support bourgeois democracy, nonetheless, not on the basis of deals with it about not producing panic fear, not on the basis of faith in its reliability, but will support it then and insofar as it actually struggles against autocracy. The proletariat goes alongside bourgeois democracy in its struggle, never forgetting the unreliability of this democracy; such support is necessary in the interests of achieving the proletariat's independent socially-revolutionary goals.

**FOOTNOTES**

Here Potresov cites an article by Lenin from No. 18 of Iskra, dated March 23 (10), 1902, "Letter to the Zemstvo Men" (see Works of Lenin, vol. V, p. 79).

See Works, vol. VI, pp. 260-262.

In No. 2-3 of Zarya, there appeared Lenin's article "Persecutors of the Zemstvo and Antipodes of Liberalism" (see Works, vol. IV, pp. 119-157).

A quote from an article by Potresov in No. 78 of Iskra, from which the words "moving nerve" are taken, cited above, p. [page reference]; the expression "independent force" is cited by Lenin from No. 77 of Iskra, dated November 18 (5), 1904. In the editorial of No. 77, titled "Democrats at the Crossroads," Iordansky wrote: "...democracy must..., as an independent force, influence the behavior of zemstvo liberals."

This refers to "N. Ryazanov. Materials for the Elaboration of a Party Program. Issue II. Draft Program of Iskra and the Tasks of Russian Social Democrats." Geneva, 1903, pp. 167-176, chapter: "Comrade Lenin at a rendezvous with a noble leader."

The author of these lines himself once heard from a radical assurances that Struve is a socialist. This was in the midst of the zemstvo movement, when faith in Struve's reliability seemed especially important to socialists.

Next to this note Lenin wrote: "Is this necessary?"